vSevemews 



OF 




THE 



SlNBt^ft^SCHOOI^ 





Class lOM Ib ^O 

Book. /T? ^7 

Copyright}^"- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 



Boy's-Eye View^s of 
the Sunday-school 



By Pucker W. -^ 



The Sunday School Times Company 
Philadelphia 



LiBBARV of CONOHESS 
Two Copies Hecelved 

DEC 22 iS08 

GopyfiRf^t Entry 






Copyrig-ht, 1908, by 
The Sunday School Times Company 



DEDICATION 

To the Congregational Sunday-school at Med- 
ford, Oklahoma, where most of these plans were 
tried, in whole or in part, and where much experi- 
menting was home with Christlike patience, this 
little hook is lovingly dedicated. 



INTRODUCTION 

The editor of the Worker asked me one time 
if I couldn't write something for his paper. I 
told him I couldn't do it, because I hated to 
write essays so. He said he didn't want any 
essays, but for me just to tell about the Sunday- 
schools I have been to and how I liked them. 

I could tell more about how I didn't like some 
of them. He said that would do, too, if I didn't 
get pessimistic (that means forgetting about all 
the good things, you know). 

So, "for the good of the cause," as Brother 
Parker says, I started in. Every month I would 
WTite some about our Sunday-school, or some 
other one, and he would put it in the Worker. 
I thought of more things to write than ever I 
supposed I could. You see there was new things 
happening all the time, and I just told about them 
as they happened. 



After a while he said to me one day, "Pucker, 
how would you like to have the pieces you have 
written about the Sunday-school made into a 
book?" I told him there wasn't enough of it yet 
to make a book, but he said there was, and so 
that's how this book came. If you will read it, 
perhaps you will find some things your school 
could try. Yours, 

Pucker. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Vacations i 

II Beginners S 

III A Bible Christmas lO 

IV Our Superintendent i6 

V Starting a Home Department 21 

VI Home Department Messengers 2(i 

VII Blackboards 30 

VIII Camping Out 38 

IX Saloons » 45 

X Beginning Late 49 

XI The Secretary 53 

XII Having Fun 57 

XIII Our Christmas 61 

XIV Review (^y 

XV Cradle Roll 71 

XVI More Cradle Roll ^y 

XVII Getting New Scholars 83 

XVIII Singing 89 

XIX Teachers' - Meeting 94 

XX Decision Day 103 



CHAPTER I 

VACATIONS 

First, I'll tell about the Sunday-school I go 
to now. It's a school in a town in Oklahoma, 
but you needn't try to guess the name of that 
town, for it isn't the one you think it is. 

Ours is what they call an evergreen school, 
and in some ways it's a mighty appropriate 
name, for they're awful green about what boys 
like. But that isn't what evergreen means. It 
means a Sunday-school that don't have any 
vacations. 

I like vacations myself, and our preacher does, 
too. He gets a whole month every year. But 
our Sunday-school don't take any vacation, not 
even for Christmas. But of course we couldn't 
then, for that would knock out having any 
Christmas tree, or arch, or balloon, or windmill, 
or whatever they want to have. 

I used to belong to a Sunday-school that had 
a vacation every summer. It was down in Texas, 
and they have vacation in summer because it is 

1 



2 Boy's-Eye Views 

SO hot, just like day-school does. But Fve got 
a cousin up in Iowa that belongs to a Union 
school that takes its vacation all winter because 
it gets so cold. 




li.V/€«OH ■7ft^«<»^'''"''^_ 



''They're 
a^wful green 
about 'what 
boys like,'* 



I suppose the farther north you go the longer 
winter vacation they have, and the farther south 
you go the longer summer vacation they have, 
till at the north pole it's all winter vacation, and 
at the Panama canal it's all summer vacation. 



of the Sunday-school 8 

^ I Ve figured out that our school must be just 
half-way between, and that's the reason we don't 
get any of either kind. 

The only trouble with a Sunday-school vaca- 
tion is that the lessons don't take any vacation. 
They go right on just the same. Down in Texas 
our school let out right after Children's Day, 
when we was studying about Joseph being sold 
into Egypt, you know, and getting to be next 
highest to the king, and when we started in 
again, the first of October, the lessons was about 
Paul's missionary journeys, and I never did know 
how Joseph came out or where Paul came from. 

If the lessons don't take any vacation I don't 
think the schools ought to either. How would 
you feel in day-school if you came back after 
vacation and found that most of the class had 
been going on all summer, and were way over 
into fractions, and you just couldn't understand 
how fractions could be, let alone adding them? 
I guess you'd wish you hadn't taken any vaca- 
tion. I saw in our Sunday-school paper where 
it said schools should be evergreen and teachers 
nevergreen, and I think so too. 

My cousin in Iowa says he had to go to day- 



4 Boy's-Eye Views 

school in that schoolhouse all winter, if it was 
cold. I thought that was mighty queer. If they 
couldn't keep warm one hour on Sunday, how 
could they ever keep warm five hours a day the 
rest of the week? 

My father says our Sunday-school came awful 
near quitting one summer, when he used to live 
here before I was born, and before we went to 
Texas. He says if it hadn't been for Deacon 
Taft it would have quit. But when they was 
going to vote on it, Deacon Taft says: "You 
can shut up the school if you want to, but you'll 
find me here on the door-step every Sunday 
morning studying the lesson." So they talked a 
while longer, and finally voted not to quit. I 
guess all it takes to keep a school evergreen is 
one person that is just bound it shan't quit. 



CHAPTER II 

BEGINNERS 

There's another good thing about our school 
besides its being evergreen, and that's the way 
they treat the babies. I don't mean the little bits 
of babies that are on the Cradle Roll, but the 
little fellers just big enough to sit up and not 
big enough to read. 

Our church hasn't got any Rockefeller in it, 
and can't afford to have but just one room. But 
the primary teacher and Brother Parker put up 
a wire across the choir corner and hung a curtain 
on it made out of some kind of cloth like moth- 
er's old wash-day dress. That makes another 
room, as far as seeing goes, but of course don't 
help the noise any. 

Then they have a lot of little red chairs, just 
right for the little fellers to sit on, and before 
Sunday-school they move the choir chairs and 
put the little red ones up there, all ready. Of 
course every little shaver has got some kind of 
a little chair of his own at home, and so when 

5 



6 Boy's-Eye Views 

he comes to Sunday-school he feels right at home 
there. 

One Sunday I went with Whacker Johnson 
to visit his Sunday-schooL Whacker's father is 
the preacher, and Whacker says his father thinks 
sermons are more important than just boys and 
girls, and he writes sermons till he don't have 
time to think about Sunday-school. If he would 

just give them an old 
sermon once, and then 
think about Sunday- 
school, he would find out 
how many good things 
there is to have and how 
''Just stick them up on many of them his school 

the front seat,'' Wasn't got. 

They don't have any curtain, nor little chairs, 
nor nothing for their little tads. They just stick 
them up on the front seat, where they can't rest 
their backs, nor touch the floor, nor nothing ; and 
if they get tired and twist around they fall off. 
When I saw them there so uncomfortable-like, 
some of them leaning Vay back, with their feet 
sticking straight out in front, and some of them 
sitting on the very edge, just ready to slip off, 




of the Sunday-school 



with their little feet hanging down and feeling 
all full of pins and needles, I felt sorry for them. 
I thought, how would grown folks like to sit 
on seats twice too big for them all over? How 
could they expect to listen to the sermon if their 
backs ached and their feet was asleep? If we 
had giant seats in our church, I bet the Ladies' 
Aid would meet quicker'n scat Monday after- 
noon and get up an oyster supper to get smaller 
ones. I know a lot of people that wouldn't come 
to churcH any more till they did get them. 

Then I thought of 
little Dickie Mason, and 
how cute he looks on 
Sunday in a little red 
coat and red stockings, 
sitting on that little red 
chair, just as comfort- 
able as if he was at 
home. He thinks that 
chair belongs to him. Why, after Sunday-school 
he goes and gets it and takes it down to his 
mother, and she puts it in between the pews and 
lets him sit on it all through church. 

Then, over to Whacker's school they have all 




If fwe had giant seats 
in our church,^* 



8 Boy's-Eye Views 

sizes together. There was Susie Green, in the 
fourth grade in day-school, sitting alongside of 
little Paul Riley, who isn't old enough to go to 
school at all. The teacher had Susie read most 
all the verses, and didn't pay hardly a bit of 
attention to Paul and the other little kids. In 
our school, as soon as you can read you get pro- 
moted from the little red chairs to the juniors, 
on a bench back of the stove. 

But the little chairs and the curtain isn't the 
best thing about our primary class. They have 
a lesson of their own that fits their minds just 
the same as the little chairs do their legs. How 
could you expect little folks to like to learn big 
folks' lessons any more than they do sitting in 
big folks' chairs? 

The lessons they use is the Beginners' Course, 
and instead of studying about Ezekiel and Zede- 
kiah and Belshazzar they learn about Adam and 
Eve, God making trees and things and taking 
care of people. Then they have pictures of the 
lessons, and lesson songs and stories. It's more 
like play than learning, but my little brother Jim 
knows more about those lessons than you'd think 
a little kid like him could learn. 



of the Sunday-school 9 

Brother Parker said the Beginners* Course 
was a part of the International Lesson System 
(that's what most everybody studies, you know), 
but the Lesson Committee gets them up extra 
for the babies. Seems to me it took them a long 
time to think of it, for they didn't have any 
extra baby lessons when I was a kid, 

I expect you are wondering how they can sing 
those lesson songs with nothing but a curtain 
between them and the other classes. Well, they 
do, all right. Why, sometimes the Bible class 
makes so much noise that you could pretty near 
holler right out and nobody could hear it. 

But they sing those songs in a whisper. Did 
you know you could whisper a tune? Well, 
you just try it once and see. It isn't very pretty 
music, — sounds like the whole class had got a bad 
cold, — but it pleases the little kids and teaches 
them the songs, for after they have learned to 
whisper a song, tune and all, they can sing it 
out loud without any practise. Sometimes after 
the lesson the superintendent pulls the curtain 
back to one end of the wire and has the babies 
sing a song out loud, and I tell you they do it 
fine. You just ought to hear them. 



CHAPTER III 



A BIBLE CHRISTMAS 



I've just got to tell you about the Christmas 
we had down to our church. It was a heap 
different from any Christmas I ever saw before. 
Brother Parker hatched it up. At first we didn't 
think it was any good at all, but when it was 
over we decided in our class that it was the 
most fun we ever had at Christmas. And I 
guess all the other classes thought so, too. 

You know generally for Christmas you have 
a tree, or a windmill, or a fire-place, or something 
like that. 

Sometimes everybody brings presents and 
hangs them on the tree for their kids and all 
their friends. But you never get what you want. 
One year, down in Texas, there was seven chil- 
dren in one family. Their father was away 
from home, and their mother hardly ever went 
to church, and those kids never got a single 
thing. You ought to have heard them howl 
when Santa Claus passed out the very last doll 

10 



of the Sunday-scbool 11 

and Noah's ark, and never had one for them. 
I guess everybody else felt Hke crying some too, 
and even I had to sniff my nose once or twice, 
thinking about how if it was me. I'd have given 
them some of my presents only they was all 
girls and wouldn't have any use for my ball and 
bat or watch chain. Some of the teachers did 
give them something, but they never came back 
to that school any more, and I don't blame them. 

If you don't have presents they give you a 
skeeter netting bag or sock with about a nickel's 
worth of mixed candy and a few nuts in it, and 
sometimes an orange that you can't eat till you 
get home, and by that time you're so full of candy 
and popcorn you don't want it. 

This year we had what Brother Parker called 
a Bible Christmas. He said a Bible Christmas 
was a giving Christmas. He said the person who 
was having the birthday always got the presents 
from the other people, and as it was Jesus' birth- 
day we ought to give things to him that day, in- 
stead of getting things, like it was our birthday. 

He talked a long time one Sunday and told 
lots of Bible verses about giving, and finally the 
school voted to do it. Our class didn't vote very 



12 Boy's-Eye Views 

loud for we couldn't see any fun in it. But 
there was, all right. 

Brother Parker said the way to give to Jesus 
was to give to somebody that was in trouble. 
So we decided to make some things for the 
orphan asylum. Each class was to make some- 
thing, but they mustn't let any of the other 
classes know what they was making till that 
night. 

It was heaps of fun meeting at the teacher's 
house and deciding what to make, and she let 
us decide it, and make motions and second them 
ourselves, just like they do at the high school 
literary society. 

And then it was lots of fun having a class 
secret. Every morning when we got to school 
we'd look at each other and say, "You know," 
and then we'd all laugh and go off, for fear we 
might tell. It was just like belonging to a club. 

Then every night after school we would scatter 
and each one go a different way so they wouldn't 
know we was all going down to our barn to work 
on it. Why, one night Bulldog Jones came down 
the alley and instead of climbing the fence like 
the rest of us did, he crawled under the barn 



of the Sunday-school 13 

and came right up through a rotten board in the 
floor. It was most Hke being a detective, only 
just the opposite, for we was trying not to be 
detectived. 

Well, when Christmas night came we all went 




'Came right up through a rotten hoard 
in the floor, ^^ 

to the church, and I never saw it look so pretty 
in all my life. 

There wasn't any tree, but all around the room 
was candles — ninety-six of them I counted. They 
was in the windows, on the pulpit, organ, library, 
in brackets on the wall, just everywhere, and it 



14 Boy's-Eye Views 

made the church as bright inside as the saloon 
down on the corner. 

Of course, there was Christmas mottoes and 
a star, but they had giving mottoes, too. Right 
opposite "Merry Christmas'* was "It is More 
Blessed to Give Than to Receive," and under 
"Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men" it said, 
"The Lord Loveth a Cheerful Giver." 

All the songs were about giving, the superin- 
tendent read in the Bible about the Wise-men 
giving presents to Jesus, there was speaking and 
exercises by the classes, and Brother Parker made 
a talk about giving ourselves to Jesus. All the 
people said it was a good talk, but I was mighty 
glad it was short for it made you feel so kind 
of mean, and I couldn't hardly wait for what was 
coming next. 

Pretty soon it was time to bring out the things 
the classes had made, and everybody was stretch- 
ing their necks and rubbering to see what it 
would be. And the old folks was worse than 
the kids about rubbering. 

The girls of course had made dolls and 
hemmed handkerchiefs and such-like stuff; the 
young ladies' class had made a quilt and some 



of the Sunday-school 15 

pillows ; the Bible class had brought a big news- 
paper holder ; the young men had made a book- 
case; and even the baby class brought a scrap- 
book. 

But what our class gave was the very best of 
all. It was a long, low bench, with a box under 
it the whole length. Inside the box was lots of 
shoe-brushes and boxes of blacking, and the 
little orphan boys can use the bench part to black 
their shoes on Saturday nights for Sundays. 

Bulldog Jones thought of it. He said he saw 
one once in a magazine advertisement. He said 
he didn't have much use for it himself, but that 
we ought to see that those orphans was brought 
up right. 

Each class took its present up and unwrapped 
it and put it on the table; then Brother Parker 
prayed over the things, that the orphans would 
like them, and that Jesus would know that we 
meant them for him. 

Then we sang "Joy to the World," and as we 
went out each one got a Christmas card with a 
Bible verse on it. My verse was *'Love seeketh 
not her own." 

I vote for that kind of a Christmas every year. 



CHAPTER IV 

OUR SUPERINTENDENT 

We had election of officers in our school the 
other Sunday for the new year. Of course they 
elected the same old superintendent again, for 
they all think there isn't anybody else will have 
it. I bet some of them would if they ever got 
a chance. 

I don't think much of our superintendent. He 
may be all right for a Sunday-school, but he 
sure never would do in a football game. Why, 
he would always do the very same thing with 
the ball that he did last time, and before he got 
started the whole of the other team would be on 
top of him. I tell you, youVe got to have some 
life to play football. You can't have just any 
old walking corpse on your team. 

I heard our superintendent say once that he 
was born the same year that gold was discovered 
in California. If he was, it looks like he would 
have caught the fever and would discover some- 
thing new for the opening exercises of our school. 

16 



of the Sunday-school 17 

But it's always the same old thing. There 
isn't a boy in our class but could get up and run 
the school just the way he does, from "We will 
open our school this morning by the use of hymn 
Number 69/' to "The teachers will now take 
their classes." We don't have to listen, for we 
always know just what is coming next. 

He don't even have to tell us how to read the 
lesson, for he seems to think there isn't but one 
way it can be read. "Read the lesson," means 
for him to read one verse and we read the next, 
and so on; you know how. 

I've been to this school more than a year now, 
and he's never read it any other way yet. Bumps 
Brown wanted to bet his watch against my bird- 
dog pup that he wouldn't read the lesson any 
other way before summer vacation. But I don't 
bet, at least not when it's a dead sure thing I lose. 

Our class knows who would make a good su- 
perintendent, and he would take it, too, because 
we asked him one day. But they never give us 
a chance to say nothing on election Sunday. If 
it wasn't for our teacher and Brother Parker, a 
lot of the boys in our class say they'd quit 
and go to the Baptist. 



18 Boy's-Eye Views 

I'm mighty glad Conference let him come back 
this year, for I'd hate to have our class run down 
like the Bible class was before Brother Parker 
came. There was only three members, and two 
of them didn't come very regular. 

I expect I would be the one in our class 
that would have to come every Sunday anyhow, 
because my father's the class leader and mother 
teaches the young ladies' class, and I just know 
they wouldn't never let me stay at home or go 
to any other school. 

I bet if our class broke up they'd even put me 
in that old class of girls, and I'd have to sit along- 
side of Mayme Whitney and hear the silly things 
talk about parties and dresses and such stuff. 

The Baptist school has got a fine superin- 
tendent. He looks like he was just a young 
fellow, but he's editor of the paper and secretary 
of the school board and sends the telegrams to 
the Wichita papers when anybody gets killed or 
there is a cyclone or anything else interesting. 

Jim Purdy goes to that Sunday-school, and 
tells us all about it at recess. Jim don't care 
nothing for Sunday-school. He says he just goes 
for the fun of it, to see what in thunder they 



of the Sunday-school 19 

will do next., (That isn't swearing.) He says 
their superintendent believes in running their 
Sunday-school the way he runs his paper, and 
that if he didn't get something new in his paper 
once in a while nobody would take it. 

Jim says you never know how they are going 
to start that school. Sometimes they sing three 
songs right along, or they may read the lesson 
first. Sometimes they begin with three or four 
prayers, and once in a while the superintendent 
will tell a story first of all, that somehow shows 
how things just like the lesson are happening 
now. 

And after they get started you never know 
what is coming next. Perhaps it's a song or a 
prayer, or maybe Bible verses or a review of 
the last lesson, or just anything. Jim says it's 
like a three-ring circus, you have to watch every 
minute or you miss something. 

My father says he thinks they carry it too far 
making the Sunday-school like a circus, but Jim 
didn't mean like a real circus, but just that it's 
interesting. 

Jim Purdy's father is engineer on «the Flyer, 
and sometimes Jim goes with him on the engine. 



20 Boy's-Eye Views 

Jim says maybe he will take me with him some 
day. He says it will nearly take my breath 
away, but he says nothing slow for him, and I 
say so too. 

Over at the Baptist they read the lesson a dif- 
ferent way nearly every Sunday. Sometimes one 
person will read it all, and all the rest of them 
will just sit and listen. Sometimes the whole 
school reads it together. But Jim says the best 
is when they divide it up like a dialogue, all 
the boys read what the men in the lesson say, all 
the girls read what the women in the lesson say, 
and the superintendent reads what comes in be- 
tween. He says you can get some sense out of 
it then. 

I wish our old superintendent was a Baptist. 



CHAPTER V 

STARTING A HOME DEPARTMENT 

We've got messengers in our school. Did you 
know that? And we're it. 

They're part of the Home Department, you 
know, but I think they're about the biggest part. 
And it isn't play, neither, but the real thing, all 
right. 

You know a Home Department is for old 
folks and sick folks, and anybody that can't come 
to Sunday-school. Only I believe some in our 
Home Department could come if they wanted to. 

But I think the Home Department is a good 
thing just the same, because lots of them really 
can't come, and maybe if the rest of them keep 
on studying the lessons they will get interested 
by and by, and then they will come. 

Our Home Department was started about a 
year ago, and it was like this: 

My mother went to a big Sunday-school con- 
vention at Guthrie, and when she came back she 
said we just had to have a new thing called a 

21 



22 Boy's-Eye Views 

Home Department that she heard about at the 
convention. 

She said one afternoon a big bald-headed man 
got up to make a spiel about something. She 
didn't listen much at first, because she hadn't 
heard his name and didn't know what he was 
going to talk about, and was most tired to death 
anyway. 

But pretty soon some one sung out that he was 
the Field Secretary's father. At that, she says 
everybody clapped their hands, and she waked 
up and began to listen with both ears, and never 
missed another word. 

She says he just told them they wasn't doing 
their whole duty unless they took the open Bible 
to them what can't come to Sunday-school, and 
that they could do it by starting a Home De- 
partment, and how if they didn't do it they 
wasn't obeying that place in the Bible where it 
says: "Go everywhere and take the Gospel to 
everybody." And she said she just decided then 
and there to do it for our school. 

She sent to the place where we always get 
our quarterlies and got a lot of samples and 
things and some Home Department quarterlies. 



of the Sunday-school 23 

Then she kept thinking about it and hating it, 
like I hate doing the chores, till that quarter was 
gone and those quarterlies was no more good 
than an invitation to a party that's already over. 
Then she had to get some new ones. 

Finally she started out, and she took me along 
with her, to kind of brace her up I guess. She 
said she would only go to Widow Smith and old 
man Mosely, what can't walk on account of the 
rheumatiz, and then she would do some more 
some other day. 

Well, it was better than a circus to see mother 
drag her feet up to old Widow Smith's door. 
She looked just like that young book agent that 
came to our house to sell father the life of Bob 
Ingersoll. I guess with all her teaching in the 
Sunday-school mother hasn't been doing very 
much inviting lately, or she wouldn't hate it 
like she did. 

But old Mrs. Smith was real pleasant, and 
after they had talked about the weather for half 
an hour mother finally told her what she had 
come for; how the Sunday-school wanted her 
to be a member, even if she couldn't come, and 
how they would bring her a quarterly every 



24 Boy's-Eye Views 

quarter, and she could study the lesson at home 
every week just the same. 

And then old Mrs. Smith just reached out 
her hand and got hold of mother's, and says: 

*'0h, Sister Henly, you don't know how glad 
I am for this. I've been just hungry for the 
Sunday-school. Why," she says, "I've been to 
Sunday-school ever since I was a little girl, 
and, altogether, I've been scholar, teacher, and 
superintendent more than fifty years, but now 
that I can't get out very regular I thought the 
Sunday-school had forgot me." 

And then she just bawled right out loud, and 
I looked at mother, and she was beginning to 
bawl too, and I seen that was no place for me, 
and I just scooted out and chased an old rooster 
in from out in the road and wished I hadn't 
come. 

But finally they got over it, and mother came 
out, with old Mrs. Smith thanking her every 
step of the way, and we left. 

Say, mother couldn't get to the next place 
quick enough. Old man Mosely didn't bawl any, 
only grunt at his rheumatiz, but he said he would 
be real glad to know where the lesson was every 



of the Sunday-school 25 

week, and that studying of it would help him to 
forget his bones. So he took the quarterly and 
things, and said on some warm, pleasant Sunday 
he was going to visit the school. 

I thought we was going to quit then for that 
day, but no, sir-ee. Mother was just finding 
out that she had something people wanted, and 
she began to like it. So she just hustled home 
for more quarterlies and envelopes, and before 
supper we went pretty near all over town. 

She said I didn't need to go with her if I 
didn't want to, but I kind of liked it myself, so 
I went along. 

Altogether we got seventeen members that 
day. There was only one what wouldn't, and 
she was nice about it. She said: 

"Why, Sister Henly, I don't want to disap- 
point you, but I don't believe I shall have time. 
But I will think it over and let you know.'* 

That's what she said, but I knew that what 
she meant was that she didn't want to, and 
mother knew it too. You can't fool mother. 

I've got to stop now before I get to the real 
messenger part, but I'll tell about that next time, 
and it's the best of all. 



CHAPTER VI 

HOME DEPARTMENT MESSENGERS 




ELL, IVe been waiting a whole 
month to tell you the rest about 
us messengers, and now I'm 
going to do it. 

You remember I told you how 
mother and I started our Home 
Department, and how we got seventeen members 
the first day. Well, mother kept right on get- 
ting them — sick people, lazy church members, 
saloon-keepers* wives, the hotel man and his 
wife, the livery barn man, the telephone girl, the 
agent down to the depot, and a deaf-and-dumb 
woman. Brother Parker helped her some, and 
finally she got fifty-three members. 

Mother said she couldn't look after so many 
and her Sunday-school class too, so she got old 
Mrs. Smith to be at the head of the Home De- 
partment, and they appointed our class to be 
messengers, to run errands for her and carry 
26 



of the Sunday-school 27 

round the quarterlies, because, you know, she 
can't get round much herself. 

There's seven of us. Bulldog Jones is cap- 
tain, and I'm clerk. Don't that sound fine? 

We have blue messenger caps and messenger 
buttons, but we only wear them when we are "on 
duty." That means going somewhere for Mrs. 
Smith or Brother Parker. And we have mes- 
senger books, too, with a certificate of enlistment 
on the front, with our name written in and 
signed by Brother Parker. On the inside of the 
back cover there is instructions, too, telling us 
how to act. Brother Parker made the messen- 
ger books and they're almost as good as real 
store ones. 

The instructions say we must be polite and 
prompt. When we deliver a message we must 
hold our caps in our left hand and the message in 
our right. Bulldog Jones didn't like to take oflf 
his cap at first. He said it was silly. But he 
does it now, all right. We told him if he didn't 
obey the rules he couldn't be captain. 

Every Saturday at 9 o'clpck we put on our 
caps and badges and take our messenger books in 
our pockets, and go to Mrs. Smith's house for 



28 Boy's-Eye Views 

roll-call and orders. We stand up in a row on 
her front porch with our caps on, and when we 
are all ready Bulldog Jones knocks on the door. 
When she comes to the door we all salute, just 
like soldiers, and then she calls the roll, and we 
say ''Here," instead of "Present.'" It sounds 
fine, and like men. 

Then we take oflf our caps and go in, and she 
tells us what she's got for us to do that day. 
Sometimes it's to take round invitations for a 
Home Department social, sometimes it's a birth- 
day letter to some member, or a New-year's 
greeting to all of them. 

Once a quarter we take a new quarterly and 
a new envelope to each member. They have to 
sign their name in our messenger book when- 
ever we carry them anything, and we have to 
get each one to hunt up his old envelope, with 
his money in it for his offering. Then we take 
our books to Mrs. Smith and "report" what we 
did and what people said, and give her the en- 
velopes. 

Mrs. Smith makes out a report after we bring 
back the envelopes, and I have to read that report 
in Sunday-school every quarter. At first I was 



of the Sunday-school 29 

scared to get up and read it, but I don't mind 
it any now. Bulldog Jones tried to make out like 
the captain ought to read the report, but Mrs, 
Smith said: **No, that is part of the duty of the 
clerk, and the captain is to see that he does it 
faithfully/' I guess there isn't any danger about 
that. 

That report tells how many new members we 
have got and how much money was in the envel- 
opes, and it has the names of all those that have 
studied every lesson. Brother Parker has me 
give those names to him and he prints them on 
a big sheet of cardboard, with "Roll of Honor" 
at the top, and hangs it on the wall of the church. 
At first there wasn't many names on it, but when 
we told them they would be on the Roll of Honor 
if they studied every lesson, lots of them began 
to study and now there's a long list every time. 

I tell you, I think messenger boys can do lots 
of good. And what do you think? Brother 
Parker said that next summer he was going to 
take us messengers camping for a whole week. 
Won't that be great? 



CHAPTER VII 

BLACKBOARDS 

I wish our school had a blackboard. 

Last Sunday mother went over to the Presby- 
terian church to tell them about the Hobart con- 
/ention. They didn't any of them go, you know. 
And she took me with her. She wasn't to talk 
till after Sunday-school, because their preacher 
is away on a vacation and they couldn't have 
any sermon except her report. 

We went over as quick as we could after our 
Sunday-school was out, and got there before 
they was done. And what do you think? Their 
superintendent was reviewing their school on 
the lesson and putting it on the blackboard, just 
like he was a real teacher like they have at 'the 
schoolhouse on week-days. 

Yes sir, up in one part of the blackboard he 
had a map drawed off. It wasn't a very good 
map. Mother could have drawed a better one 
with her left hand. There wasn't nothing to it 
but a straight line on the top and bottom and 

30 



of the Sunday-school 31 

right-hand side, and a wiggly line on the left- 
hand side, and in the middle two little ponds, 
with a wiggly river between them. But any- 
body would know what it was without hardly 
looking at it. 

When we got there he had a boy up to the 
board trying to put on the mountain where Jesus 
was transfigured, and where Elijah and Moses 
came down from heaven, you know, and talked 
with him. He couldn't seem to get it right at 
first, but the superintendent kept asking him 
questions, and finally the boy found the right 
place. 

Then another boy went up and showed where 
they was for the lesson before, on Peter's great 
confession. Then a girl went up and drawed a 
line from one place to the other, to show where 
they went. 

I didn't know where those places was before 
I went there, 'cause our teacher just has us look 
at them on a little map in her Bible and we 
forget them so easy. But I don't believe I shall 
ever forget those two places I saw on the black- 
board, honest I don't. Why, I can shut my eyes 
and see the whole thing any time. 



32 Boy's-Eye Views 

It didn't take but a minute or two to get the 
lesson on the map. Then the superintendent put 
six straight marks on the board, and said they 
was to stand for the people on the mountain at 
the time of the transfiguration. He asked the 
whole school for their names, and as fast as 
anybody gave them he put P over one mark for 
Peter, and M over one for Moses, and like that, 
you know. But instead of putting J over Jesus, 
he made that mark whiter and all shiny-like. 

Then he said: "Jesus was in a hard place. 
He was getting ready to let himself be killed 
for you and me. And the disciples were in a 
hard place. They didn't believe Jesus ought to 
let himself be killed, and they had to change 
their minds. So God sent down those two from 
heaven to help Jesus get ready to be killed, and 
to help the disciples to see that it was God's 
way to save the world. Don't forget that when- 
ever we get in a hard place, if we ask him, God 
will send and help us out in some way." 

While he was talking he was making marks 
on the board like this: 

Id illli Mill iCil 



of the Sunday-school 33 

I couldn't think what it was for, till all at 
once he said: "You can't read this till I put in 
some other marks to help you out, just as God 
puts things into our lives to help us understand 
the hard things." Then he put some level marks 
and slanting marks onto the up-and-down ones, 
and made it read: 

HE NILL HELP YOU 

Then they sang that song that has for a chorus : 

"Ask the Saviour to help you, 
Comfort, strengthen and keep you. 
He is willing to aid you, 

He will carry you through." 

I forget what our superintendent said our les- 
son was for, but I bet Til never forget that sen- 
tence I saw on the board. 

Last Thursday I pretty near had a fight with 
a boy. I won't tell who he was nor what it was 
about. He made me awful mad and I just 
wanted to soak him one. I knew I hadn't ought 
to, but it just seemed like I couldn't help it. Theq 



34 Boy's-Eye Views 

all at once I thought of that sentence on the 
blackboard : 

HE NILL HELP YOU 

and I just walked away with my hands in my 
pockets, like I didn't care. 

I don't see why every school don't have a 
blackboard. Why, they couldn't have a day- 
school without one. They just couldn't teach a 
thing, and I don't see why it isn't just as good 
to teach with in Sunday-school. 

And besides, it makes it interesting. 'Course, 
I go to Sunday-school, anyway, 'cause my father 
and mother always goes, and I've kind of got 
used to going regular. But there's lots of fellers 
my size that don't go. 

When I was down to the Hobart convention 
and heard Mr. Pearce tell about asking boys to 
come to Sunday-school, you know, I made up 
my mind I would ask some when I got home. 
Well, last week I asked Tom McClain to come 
and be in our class, and he said: "Oh, come 
off; it's too dry for me." 

I bet if we had a blackboard and put the les- 



of the Sunday-school 35 

son on it he wouldn't think it was dry. Why, 
when the superintendent over to the Presby- 
terian was putting those things on I just couldn't 
hardly wait to see what was coming next. But 
I bet if our superintendent tried it he'd put the 
whole lesson on the board before school began, 
and there wouldn't be any more excitement in 
it than there is in three-old-cat. I tell you, if 
you want to make it interesting you've got to 
have something new happening all the time. 

And it helps to keep order, too. I mean the 
blackboard does. Why, I never heard such a 
stillness in a Sunday-school as there was while 
we was all watching those straight lines, and 
listening to hear what he would say about them. 
And I know a Sunday-school where some of that 
same kind of stillness would be a mighty good 
thing. 

I asked mother, going home, why somebody 
hadn't thought of a Sunday-school blackboard 
sooner, and she said they had thought of it more 
than thirty years ago, but that somehow folks 
was so busy, or something, that they didn't all 
of them have any yet. I think that if Sunday- 
school blackboards was invented thirty years ago, 



36 Boy's-Eye Views 

any school that doesn't have one is about thirty 
years behind the times. 

I told the fellers in our class about it and they 
said they was going to ask our superintendent 
why he didn't get a blackboard and get up-to- 
date. I know what he'll say. He'll say he can't 
draw. But pshaw ! any feller in our class will put 
on the maps and the marks for him if he'll tell us 
what to put on. 

I forgot to tell you that the Presbyterian 
school had another smaller board up on the wall 
that had a big sheet of paper pinned over it. I 
kept wondering what was behind that sheet of 
paper. 

Pretty soon they called for the secretary's re- 
port, and instead of getting up and reading a 
lot of figures and stuff that you can't half hear 
nor remember at all, the secretary just got up 
and said : "We have a fine report to-day." Then 
she pulled down the sheet of paper, and there it 
was all wrote down on this little board, like this : 

Present 49 Last Sunday 43 

Tardy 5 Last Sunday 6 

Offering 67c. Last Sunday 50c. 



of the Sunday-school 37 

She had put it on that board when they was 
all busy studying the lesson, and when she pulled 
the paper down everybody rubbered at it for 
about a minute; then they was all ready to sing 
the last hymn, and anybody could remember a 
report like that. 

Pshaw! I bet there's fifty things you could 
use the blackboard for if folks would just try. 

I asked father how much a blackboard would 
cost, and he said: ''Oh, a couple of dollars or 
so.'' I wish our class had some way to earn a 
couple of dollars. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CAMPING OUT 

You remember how Brother Parker promised 
to take us Home Department messengers camp- 
ing? Well, he did it; and, say, talk about fun! 

Part of the time we made out like we was 
Indians and part of the time cowboys, and most 
all of the time hunters. And that wasn't much 
make-believe, either, 'cause Brother Parker 
brought a really, truly rifle. Mother didn't hardly 
want him to, but he said he'd be awful careful 
and so she let him. 

I tell you, it was a good thing she did. Why, 
there was more snakes to kill, and awful hard 
to hit with a rifle, too. Then we shot frogs and 
cooked them for dinner. One day a big snap- 
ping-turtle came along the bank, so big we 
couldn't hardly lift him when he was dead. 
Brother Parker shot him in the head and right 
down his neck to his heart, 'cause he might crawl 
up some night and snap our toes. 

But I forgot to tell you the start of it. We 
38 



of the Sunday-school 39 

went right after the Fourth of July. It took 
most a week to get together all the things we 
was going to need, and fill up the grub box, and 
load the wagon. But Saturday night we got all 
loaded and ran the wagon under the shed till 
Monday morning. 

That was the longest Sunday I ever saw. 
Seemed like night never would come. 

Monday morning we all got up at four o'clock, 
dressed up in our old clothes, hitched up the 
team, and pulled out at just five o'clock. It 
wasn't hardly light yet, and seemed awful early. 

About seven o'clock we stopped and got break- 
fast, and then went on. We got to the camping- 
place about two o'clock. It was right by a creek, 
and where there was plenty of trees. We 
couldn't find any spring, but afterward we made 
one in the bank, like the Indians do, and kept 
the milk and butter hanging in it. 

Well, we put up the tent^ made a kind of fire- 
place out of rocks, and Brother Parker got din- 
ner. I tell you, he can cook all right. Our folks 
said they didn't know what we was going to eat 
out there. But my, we had lots better grub 
than we get at home. We got milk, butter, eggs. 



40 



Boy's-Eye Views 



potatoes, roasting ears, chickens, and some of our 
bread from the houses near us. Brother Parker 
made flapjacks part of the time and flipped them 
over in the air Hke a cowboy taught him once. 




'^ Made flapjacks and flipped them over 
in the air like a co^wboy,** 

Then we caught lots of fish, and fried frogs' 
legs and bacon, cooked beans, made mush and 
lots of other good things. One day we made 
turtle soup. 



of the Sunday-school 41 

We all took turns going for milk, water and 
things, setting the table, cleaning the fish and 
washing the dishes. That last was the hardest 
of all. 

We had a good big tent, and that first night 
we all slept in it, with the flaps down tight. But 
it was awful hot, and the skeeters got in there 
and couldn't get out again. They had a regular 
picnic all night, but we didn't, and after that 
first night we all took our beds out under the 
trees, where the breeze would blow all the skeet- 
ers off. Pretty soon we got so we didn't mind 
sleeping outdoors a bit. 

And we all learned to swim. Bulldog Jones 
and Brother Parker knew already, and they 
taught the rest of us. When we first got there 
the creek wasn't deep enough to swim in, but 
we made a dam in a narrow place, out of logs 
and rocks, with sand all over it, and we could 
make the water as deep as we wanted to. Some- 
times we'd go in swimming twice a day, and I 
learned to dive and swim on my back, and dog- 
fashion, and sideways, and everything. I got 
ducked some, too. 

Before we went I didn't see what there would 



42 Boy's-Eye Views 

be to do all the time, but my, there was plenty 
to do. When we wasn't in swimming, we was 
fishing, or hunting bullfrogs, or picking sand 
plums or wild blackberries, or getting wood for 
the fire, or reading out of some books that 
Brother Parker brought. There was some fun to 
have all the time. 

But the best was after supper when it began 
to get dark, and we'd all sit down or lie on the 
ground around the fire and talk. Brother Parker 
would tell the best stories about brave men. One 
night we all told what we thought was the brav- 
est man. After we all said what we thought, 
about going to war and getting killed, you know, 
and all that, Brother Parker said he thought the 
bravest man on earth was the one that kept right 
on doing what he thought was right when every- 
body else thought he was doing wrong and blamed 
him for it. 

One night we all told what we was going to 
be when we was grown up. I said I was going 
to be a banker. When I said that Brother 
Parker said then I better study my arithmetic 
good and hard. 

After we'd talked a while, then Brother Parker 



of the Sunday-school 43 

would say some verses out of the Bible, like, 
"Let not your heart be troubled," or that about 
"lay me down in peace and sleep." Sometimes 
we'd all together say, "The Lord is my shep- 
herd," and then we'd all shut our eyes, lying 
right there on the ground round the fire, and 
Brother Parker would pray a little short prayer 
that the Lord would take care of us through the 
dark and look out for the folks at home. It 
wasn't a bit like the prayers he makes in church, 
but I liked it. Made you feel kind of good all 
over. Why, one night he said my old baby 
prayer, only he said it like this : 

"And now we lay us down to sleep, 
We pray the Lord our souls to keep, 
If we should die before we wake, 
We pray the Lord our souls to take. 
And this we ask for Jesus' sake, 

Amen." 

The way he said it didn't sound a bit babyish. 
I just about made up my mind to take to saying 
it again nights. 

On Sunday we all went over to a church about 
two miles off to Sunday-school. Sometime I'm 



44 Boy's-Eye Views 

going to tell about that Sunday-school. Say, it 
was fierce. 

After Sunday-school Brother Parker preached. 
All the people seemed to like it, and they was 
awful nice and sociable to us. They didn't wait 
to be introduced like they do at our church. 
They just walked right up and shook hands, and 
said they was glad to see us. 

The next Tuesday a whole lot of them brought 
their dinners and came down to our camp for 
a picnic. They asked us to eat dinner with them 
out of their baskets, and you just bet we did. 
Why, they had chicken and preserves and jel- 
lies, and a whole lot of pie and cake. I thought 
Bumps Brown would make himself sick. Best 
of all, when they got ready to go they gave us 
all the cake and pie left. We had enough to 
last till we started home. 

We got home all right and I've been hungry 
ever since. I asked Brother Parker if we could 
go again next year, but he said he didn't know. 
I hope we do. 



CHAPTER IX 

SALOONS 

Two weeks ago we had Temperance Day in 
our Sunday-school. The Anti-Saloon League 
told us to, you know, 'cause pretty soon we've 
got to vote on prohibition for Oklahoma. 

We had some special songs by the girls' choir, 
and some mottoes on the wall about putting a 
bottle to your neighbor's lips, and "Woe to him 
that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth 
a city by iniquity!" and "Neither be partaker of 
other men's sins," and "Quit you like men, be 
strong." 

Our teacher said as how some men want sa- 
loons in a town because they help business. I 
asked my father if the saloon right next door to 
his store helped his business any, and what do 
you suppose he said? 

He said, "No sir; it don't." He said, "There's 
women in this town that won't trade with me 
just because they hate to go by the door of that 
saloon, and I get a dollar a month less for my 

45 



46 Boy's-Eye Views 

office rooms upstairs than the man across the 
street does, just because my stairway goes right 
up by the saloon." He said, "On Saturday night, 
when the men come downtown with money in 
their pockets to buy things for Sunday, they go 
to the saloon first, and then when they come to 
the store they only buy a little bit of each thing, 
and the very cheapest kind." He says that he's 
got more than a thousand dollars charged on his 
books that he can't collect just because the men 
what owe it spend all their extra money in the 
saloons. He says it don't help his business any, 
and I shouldn't think it did. 

And my father says, ''I know another business 
it don't help any, and that's the business of rais- 
ing boys. Saloons don't help in raising boys any 
more than loco weed helps raise horses. And I 
should think raising boys into good men like 
Lincoln and McKinley and Roosevelt and Folk 
was a pretty important business for a town." 

If saloons help a town, what makes the town 
charge them $500 a year for doing it? It don't 
look fair to charge folks for helping us, does it? 

I don't believe that saloons help any kind of 
business except the doctor's business and the 



of the Sunday-school > 47 

sheriff's business and the lawyer's business and 
the undertaker's business, and especially the sa- 
loon business. So there now! 

After the lesson that Sunday we all signed 
the pledge that we wouldn't never drink nor 
sign a saloon petition nor vote for it. All us 
boys signed it, but some of the men didn't. 
Skinny Ross's father never signed it, ^cause he 
signs saloon petitions. Yes sir, he does. 

One time he caught Skinny loafing round the 
saloon and selling them empty beer bottles, you 
know, and he fired Skinny home like scat, and, 
say, maybe you think he didn't warm him up with 
a strap. But isn't that a funny way to do? 
When a man asks for a saloon in his town, don't 
it look like he ought to furnish at least one boy 
to help support it? It can't run without boys, 
and he surely wasn't mean enough to ask for a 
saloon so his neighbor's boys could get drunk 
when he didn't want his own to. And him a 
church member, too, and praying that the Lord 
will build up the work of the church, and then 
praying to the county clerk to send a saloon 
to tear down the work of the church. Ain't 
that funny? 



48 Boy's-Eyc Views 

Then there's the license fee. If the saloon is 
a good thing, it's a shame to tax it like they 
do. If it's a bad thing and men don't want it 
without a license fee, why should they change 
their minds when it pays $500 a year? Don't it 
look like the saloon had hired them to change 
their minds and vote for something they don't 
want? And isn't that exactly what these bribers 
try to do at Washington, D. C? 

Maybe that $500 makes up for the badness 
of the saloon. The saloon is bad, but the saloon 
and $500 to boot is all right. Then the $500 
balances off the harm they are going to do, and 
by paying the $500 they get a permit to do the 
town $500 worth of harm in a year, because 
they've already paid the damages beforehand. 
There has been three stores fail in this town 
and two men have killed themselves, all on 
account of the saloons, since we moved here. I 
guess they have done this town all the harm they 
paid for, and more too. 



CHAPTER X 

BEGINNING LATE 

Let me see. I promised Td tell about that 
Sunday-school we went to when we was out 
camping, didn't I? Well then, here goes. 

The school was to be at 2 130 in the afternoon, 
and then Brother Parker was to preach at 3 130, 
you know. The schoolhouse was about two miles 
away, so we hustled dinner over and started 
about half past one, so as to be sure not to get a 
tardy mark. 

But when we got there there wasn't a single 
soul in sight. The door wasn't even unlocked yet. 
So we sat around, and after a while the man 
came that had the key. He said he saw us there 
from his house and came over early so as to let 
us in. And what do you think? It was plumb 
half past two right then. 

Well, after a while the boys and girls began 
to come on foot and on horseback. Then some 
wagons drove up with folks in them, and there 
was quite a crowd in the schoolhouse and out- 

49 



50 Boy's-Eye Views 

side. It got most three o'clock^ and they was 
all ready to begin, but couldn't do anything be- 
cause the superintendent wasn't there yet. 

By and by he came and shook hands all around, 
like there wasn't any need for starting the school 
for quite a while yet. Then he went over and 
asked the girl at the organ to pick out a number 
to sing, and at five minutes past three they began. 
We'd been there an hour then, and was most 
ready to go home. 

That wasn't the worst of it, either. They 
never quit till quarter past four, and by the 
time Brother Parker had preached his sermon 
and we had walked the two miles back to camp, 
it was plumb six o'clock. And we never got the 
supper dishes washed till dark. 

I think if they say they are going to begin 
at two-thirty they ought to be there and begin, 
and if they ain't going to begin till five minutes 
past three, then they ought to set five minutes 
past three for the hour. I'd have something to 
go by besides just when the superintendent gets 
there. 

At our school, the organist keeps her eye on the 
clock all the time and at three minutes before 



of the Sunday-school 51 

ten she goes to the organ and gets all ready. 
When the long hand says it's exactly ten o'clock 
she plays three long chords on the organ. That's 
the signal to come to order. Then the super- 
intendent gives out the first hymn and we all 
stand up and sing. 

If the superintendent isn't there when the first 
chord sounds, the assistant superintendent walks 
up and takes his place. If the assistant super- 
intendent isn't there the Bible class teacher walks 
up, and so on. If the organist isn't there at 
three minutes before ten, the assistant organist 
goes to the organ, and if she should be sick, 
Brother Parker's wife goes. She's always there. 
I'll say this much for our old superintendent, he 
says that school has got to start on time "tho' 
the heavens fall." I tell you, that's what takes, 
too. 

Then, in our school, the secretary always calls 
the roll of officers and teachers. But they don't 
answer for themselves. When she calls, "Su- 
perintendent John J. Smith,'* the whole school 
says, "Present." And when she calls, "Organ- 
ist, Mable Jones," if she isn't there, we all say, 
"Absent." For a teacher, her class says present 



62 Boy's-Eye Views 

or absent, and if a teacher don't come, she knows 
her whole class will say, "Absent/' I tell you, 
they're most always there, and they're on time, 
too. One time we got up kind of late at our 
house and poked around with breakfast, and we 
was all late to Sunday-school. When mother 
got to her class roll-call was all over. And, sir, 
when that old superintendent saw her coming in 
after roll-call, he just gave out for the next 
hymn, "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder FU 
Be There." Mother's face got as red as a beet 
and father looked mad, but I tell you we don't 
lay abed any more on Sunday mornings. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE SECRETARY 

Let me tell you some more about that school 
we visited when we was out camping. You re- 
member how they began away late. Well, when 
they finally got started they never made up any 
time. 

The superintendent gave out a hymn and then 
they had to wait while they passed the books. 
Then the organist played it all through about 
as slow as if it was a funeral we was at instead 
of a Sunday-school. And when, finally, they 
began to sing it went slower still, like as if the 
grave wasn't done and they had to make the 
funeral last till the grave-digger sent word to 
come on. 

Then they read the lesson. Of course they 
read it the same old way, like we always do in 
our school. You know how that is. 

But the worst was the secretary. She kept 
running around the room like a merry-go-round 
broke loose. She never did one thing till the 

53 



54 Boy's-Eye Views 

lesson began, then she went and hunted up the 
class-books and distributed them. But she for- 
got the collection envelopes and had to make 
another trip around with them before the 
teachers could begin to teach. Then she went 
and sorted out picture cards for the little folks. 

She made another trip around to collect the 
class-books and envelopes and make up her re- 
port. And, last, she counted out as many papers 
as each class needed, and started to pass them. 
But before she got clear around she found she 
had got the wrong date, and had to collect up 
those she had given out and go back and hunt 
tip the right ones. I tell you, she was a hustler, 
but she bothered the teachers so they couldn't 
hardly teach. 

The very worst of all was her passing the 
papers before the classes were done with the 
lesson. When the warning bell tapped she went 
and gave a picture paper to every single scholar, 
and after that the teachers couldn't any more 
teach than nothing, for the kids looking at the 
papers. Our teacher didn't try to finish the les- 
son. She just quit. 

In our school our secretary is all right, if 



of the Sunday-school 55 

our superintendent is a back number. She's just a 
young girl, too, but Brother Parker told her how 
to do. They bought one of those ten-cent school- 
bags for each class in the school and numbered 
each bag according to the class it was for. On 
Saturday she goes to thechurchand sorts the cards 
and papers and things, and puts into each bag 
all the things that class will need — class-book, 
collection envelope, lesson leaves or new quarter- 
lies, picture papers, and even hymn-books — 
they're little paper ones, you know. 

Then, on Sunday morning, before Sunday- 
school begins, she goes and leaves each bag where 
that class always sits, and when school opens 
they don't have to wait to pass anything. Each 
teacher just passes to her own class right out 
of their class bag. That lets the secretary stay 
in her class till the lesson is most over. Then 
she goes round the room just once and takes the 
class-books and envelopes out of the bags, where 
the teachers have put them back, goes and makes 
up her report, and then collects the bags when 
Sunday-school is out. Isn't that better, now? I 
don't see why all Sunday-schools don't try it. 

And do you know when they give us our 



66 Boy's-Eye Views 

papers? You can just bet they don't do it while 
we are studying the lesson and trying to answer 
questions. You see the teacher distributes the 
papers herself, and she leaves them right in the 
bag till after weVe said the Lord's Prayer at 
the end of school, and then she just takes them 
out and hands them to us as we go out of the 
pew. That keeps us from rushing out too soon 
and keeps the papers from bothering the lesson. 
There's lots of different ways of being secre- 
tary, isn't there? 



CHAPTER XII 

HAVING FUN 

Our teacher was sick last Sunday, and the 
superintendent got a man what was visiting our 
school to teach our class. And, say, but we had 
fun. You'd never guess what his business is. 
He's a traveling man. Yes sir, he works for a 
big hardware firm at Kansas City. But he's a 
Christian, all right, and says he goes to Sunday- 
school wherever he is on Sunday. 

Our teacher is pretty good. I haven't got a 
word to say against her. She always knows her 
lesson, and she always has something to make it 
interesting, like a picture of the place, or a story 
about some great man that did what the lesson 
says. She always speaks to us on the street and 
has us to her home for ice-cream in summer and 
peanuts in winter. And she's always at Sunday- 
school, 'less she's sick or something. And she 
writes nice letters to us on our birthdays. Oh, 
I tell you, she's all right! 

But this traveling man, he didn't seem to think 

67 



58 Boy's-Eye Views 

about being a teacher. He just thought about 
us. He didn't seem to care for rules, nor order, 
nor verses, nor nothing but just boys and hav- 
ing a good time, and being manly and brave. 

Why, we never hardly knew when he began 
the lesson. We was all watching to see who 
they would get to teach us, and when the super- 
intendent asked him he just got right up and 
came over, kind of smiling, like he was glad, 
He made the superintendent introduce him to 
each of us like we was men, and he shook hands 
all round, and said, "Have you had a good time 
this last week?" 

We kind of grinned, and Bulldog Jones says: 
"You bet." 

Instead of looking shocked he smiled, and 
said, "That's good. What have you been doing?" 

We told him some of the things, and then he 
said: "Have any of you been in a tight place 
this week, a place of testing?" 

He told how when they make a piece of armor- 
plate to put on a big battleship they set it up and 
shoot at it with big cannons, to test it. He said 
surely some of us had been in some hard place 
of testing like that this last week. 



of the Sunday-school 59 

Then I thought of the time the teacher asked 
me if I had been whispering, and I wanted to tell 
her no. When this man looked at me straight 
and says, "Boys, did you stand the test?" I was 
mighty glad I had told the teacher the truth, if I 
did have to stay in. 

He told how Jesus was tested in Gethsemane, 
and before Annas and Caiaphas and the court of 
seventy elders, and then before Herod and 
Pilate. I tell you, didn't he have a heap of trials 
all at once? 

He said Jesus had all those trials not to prove 
whether he was guilty or innocent, but to show 
us how to bear our hard things. 

Then came the fun. He said we could find 
out how much each other knew about the lesson. 
Each one could ask a question of any other feller 
he wanted to, and if that feller could answer, 
then it was his turn to ask of somebody else. 
My, how we did shoot 'em at each other. It 
was more exciting than a ball game. Skinny 
Ross finally ended it all up and stuck us all by 
asking of Bulldog Jones, "Who'd want to be 
Pilate?" 

Then we talked about who could help us stand 



60 Boy's-Eye Views 

our trials. We named mother, father, Brother 
Parker, our teacher, good books, and then the 
teacher said, "And yourselves/' He says, "You've 
got to do it yourselves. Nobody can do it for 
you. You've just got to have sand enough to say 
NO. 'Any softie can go wrong, but it takes 
sand to keep straight.' " 

That made us all hold up our heads. Then he 
said, "But we can't do it alone, no matter how 
much sand we have. I can't. You can't. We 
must hook on to Jesus and let him hook on 
to us. He will always know how to help us in 
a tight place, because he went through such tight 
places himself." 

"Boys," he says, "I know this is true, because 
I've tried it a thousand times and he has never 
failed me. Won't you every one let him grip on 
to you to help you forever ?" 

Just then the bell rang, and I didn't think it 
was near time yet, neither, but somehow I've 
been thinking about that ever since. 



CHAPTER XIII 

OUR CHRISTMAS 

My, it don't seem like il: had been a year since 
I wrote about the kind of a Christmas we had 
last year, that time when every class made some- 
thing, you know, and gave it to somebody else 
instead of getting anything our own selves. That 
was a heap of fun, all right, but our Christmas 
this year beat it all holler. It was a Bible Christ- 
mas, and the whole program came right out of 
the Bible, all but the singing, and that sounded 
just like the Bible. 

Instead of candy bags on a tree, or any old 
thing like that, we had a school supper. We 
gave things, too. Every class made something 
for somebody what needed it. But instead of 
bringing it into church and showing it off like 
as if we did it for folks to see, and Hke we 
was proud of it, each class never let on it was 
making anything, and we ain't never, never going 
to tell anybody what we made nor who got it. 

Brother Parker put us on to that game by 

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62 Bo/s-Eye Views 

talking some kind of a spiel about not doing 
things to be seen of men like the Pharisees did, 
and not letting our right hand know what our 
left hand was doing. But that isn't what I was 
going to tell about. 

'Course we had a lot of committees, and such, 
and one Sunday about two weeks before Christ- 
mas they gave out to every scholar on the roll 
a ticket like this: 



ADMIT 



* to the Christmas Supper of the M. E. * 

* Church, in the church at 5 130 P, M., * 

* Monday, December 24, 1907. * 

Well, of course we all went, and say, what 
a time ! The church was all fixed up with deco- 
rations and mottoes and lights, and the whole 
school was there, and how they did giggle, and 
how happy it was! Us kids had more fun than 
the old gray-headed fellers used to at the old 
settlers' reunions down in Texas. 

Pretty soon the committee came round with 



of the Sunday-school 63 

plates and sandwiches, pickles, hard-boiled eggs, 
cheese, and cookies. It was just like a Sunday- 
school picnic, only it was in the house. Well, 
we ate and ate and ate, and talked and laughed. 




**It ^as just like a Sunday-school picnic ^ 
only it ivas in the house,** 

And the girls they just giggled like they didn't 
have any sense, but we all had a dandy good 
time. It was a heap better than just a sack of 
candy what you can't eat that night because it's 



64 Boy's-Eye Views 

SO late, and don't want next day because youVe 
got so much other, better candy, anyhow. 

About the time they was all done eating and 
got the things cleared up and the chairs fixed 
back where they belonged, the folks began com- 
ing to the entertainment. Only Brother Parker 
says we mustn't call it an entertainment, because 
it wasn't just to entertain the folks. It was to 
celebrate Jesus' birthday. He said the supper 
was a kind of a birthday supper in Jesus' house* 
and the program was to celebrate his birth. 

They had taken the pulpit down and made the 
platform clean across the end of the church and 
clean down to the front seat, and the whole 
school sat on the platform. They was arranged 
round in circles like a minstrel show, with the 
little kids in front sitting on the little red chairs 
and a space in the center for the speakers to stand 
in. The organ was clear down to one side on 
the main floor and every seat in the house was 
full of folks. 

My, I wish you could have heard that pro- 
gram. It was fine. First was a song out of the 
Sunday-school song-book about "The Old, Old 
Story is True," by all of us. You see, we was 



of the Sunday-school 65 

going to tell them that old, old story in the 
program. 

Then the Junior Boys got up, and each one 
said a short prophecy about Christ. They ran 
all the way from Adam and Eve to Malachi. 
Two girls spoke recitations about his coming. 
One was about, "There shall come forth a rod 
out of the stem of Jesse,'* and the other was, 
"For unto us a child is born," etc. That was 
the way it was all through — songs about Christ- 
mas out of the song-book and recitations out of 
the Bible — and it told the whole thing before we 
got through. 

And it was good, too. When all the men and 
boys in the whole school stood up and sang 
"Holy Night," or when the little kids in the red 
chairs piped up with, "Away in a manger, no 
crib for his bed," I tell you the folks liked it. 
And when my little brother Jim climbed right 
up on his chair and spoke, "For God so loved 
the world," they all just clapped like every- 
thing. 

One recitation was about the shepherds, just 
like it is in the Bible, and then we all sang, 
"While shepherds watched their flocks by night." 



^6 Boy*s-Eye Views 

Our class spoke about the Wise-men, and then 
the whole crowd and everybody stood up and 
sang, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come." 
That was the end, all but the benediction, that 
nobody listens to anyhow. I heard most fifty 
people say it was the interestingest program 
they had ever heard on a Christmas. 

There was only one woman what didn't like it. 
She was shooting off her mouth after it was 
over, but mother shut her up pretty quick, I tell 
you. Mother says to her, "Well, it was all about 
Jesus, anyhow, not half Jesus and half Santa 
Claus/' 



CHAPTER XIV 

REVIEW 

You remember the Sunday after Christmas 
was Review Sunday. Let me tell you about how 
we did it in our school. It was a new plan. Of 
course it was Brother Parker what hatched it up. 
He said he saw it in a paper somewhere. 

Our old superintendent wouldn't have known 
it was a good plan if he'd seen it. I don't believe 
he ever reads any papers on Sunday-school work, 
for fear he might accidentally run on to some- 
thing new. My, wouldn't it skeer him stiff, 
though ! 

There has only been two kinds of reviews in 
our school since I've been here. About every 
second Review Sunday, instead of having classes 
the superintendent would get up in front of the 
whole school and read the review questions 
what's printed in the back of the quarterly. 
'Course he's got a Senior quarterly, and the 
questions are full of big words, and too hard, 
anyhow, about, "In what way does the third 
verse prove the doctrine of immortality?" and 
stuff like that. 

67 



£B Boy*s-Eye Views 

Most of the fellers in our class played hookey 
when they thought we was going to have that 
kind of a review. I wanted to skin out myself, 
but mother wouldn't let me. She says it would 
be a bad example. Shoot example, anyway! 

The rest of the Review Sundays the superin- 
tendent never says nothing, and the teachers do 
just as they please. Our teacher generally has 
some kind of a scheme to get answers out of us, 
but most of the lessons are so far back that 
we've forgot that we ever had them, and mostly 
we have to say we can't remember. That makes 
teacher look sad, and then we hate ourselves and 
wish we was home. One kind of review is just 
about as bad as the other. You pays your money 
and takes your choice. 

But this last time they had something dif5ferent, 
and there didn't any of us know what it was 
going to be till we got there. The opening exer- 
cises was about the same old drag. Then the 
superintendent says: "Brother Parker has got 
up some review questions of his own this time, 
one for each class." Then Brother Parker had 
two boys pass round and give each teacher her 
question on a slip of paper. The question was 



of the Sunday-school 69 

for the whole class, and we had fifteen minutes 
for the classes to fix up their answers. 

Our question was, "Name some of the miracles 
of Jesus/' You see, we was just getting done 
with studying the whole life of Jesus for a year, 
so the questions wasn't just on the quarter's les- 
sons, but on the life of Jesus. I think that's a 
heap better way anyhow. 

Well, we named over all the miracles we could 
think of, — water into wine, nobleman's son, 
Jairus's daughter, raising that widow's boy down 
in some town, feeding the crowd on the little 
feller's lunch, helping them catch a big mess of 
fish, raising Lazarus, fixing that feller's ear. I 
never could remember his name, but I know he 
got his ear cut off and Jesus fixed it. Teacher 
made Skinny Ross write down all we named, and 
said when we was called for he should read the 
list and that would be our answer. My, I was 
glad it wasn't me. 

Pretty soon the fifteen minutes was up. The 
superintendent slammed the bell a couple of 
times, and we came to order. That's what the 
superintendent called it, but I didn't see anybody 
what had been out of order. We'd all been doing 



70 Boy's-Eye Views 

what we was told to do. Isn't that order? We 
sang a song to fill in, and then the superintendent 
called the questions and somebody in each class 
got up and read the answer they had fixed up. 

I can't remember what all of it was about. I 
know one class tried to name Jesus' friends and 
clean forgot to put in John and Peter and the 
rest of the apostles. But that was only a girls' 
class. Most every class answered right, and 
Brother Parker made a little speech about how 
pleased he was with the year's work and how 
much we knew about Jesus. But he said the 
main thing was to know Jesus himself, the real 
live Jesus, as a friend that we couldn't see, but 
that was right with us all the time to help us, 
and that we could talk to him just like to your 
mother and he would hear you. That sounded 
a little fishy to me, but the big folks and the 
little kids just opened their mouths and took it in. 

Then we had election of officers. Us fellers 
was all dying to vote for a new superintendent, 
but no, sir. Nobody but the same old stick was 
put up, and so he's it for another year. Wish 
I could go to some other school, only for Brother 
Parker and our teacher. 



CHAPTER XV 

CRADLE ROLL 

I believe I haven't ever told anything yet about 
our baby roll. Cradle Roll is what they call it 
at our Sunday-school, but baby roll is its real 
name, 'cause that's exactly what it is, a roll of all 
the babies that have joined our Sunday-school be- 
fore they were old enough to come to it. 

I think it would be a whole lot better to call 
it baby roll and be done with it. Then folks 
would know right off just what you were talking 
about. When they first planned to have one in 
our school^ Brother Parker made a talk about it 
and asked how many had ever seen a Cradle 
Roll, and one old man said: 

"I don't believe my old woman knows how to 
bake 'em." I guess he thought it was some kind 
of a biscuit. 

Our Cradle Roll started all of a sudden. 
They was holding a township convention at our 
church. The county president was there, and 
he made a talk about having a Cradle Roll. Then 

71 



72 Boy's-Eye Views 

he stopped and looked all around the walls like 
he was looking for something. Pretty soon he 
says: 

'Where is it?" 

Mother says: ''What?" 

"Why, your Cradle Roll/' says he. 

"Well, we haven't got round to start it yet/' 
says mother. 

"Why not start it right now?" says the presi- 
dent. 

"I would if I knew how/' she says. 

So he tells her how, and she takes a sheet of 
paper out of the secretary's book and goes round 
the room to all the Methodist people what had 
little babies, got them to say the baby could join 
the roll, put down the babies' names, and when 
their birthday was, and then you see she had a 
Cradle Roll. 

She got five of them that afternoon. After 
the meeting was out at four-thirty she hustled 
out and got three more. Right after supper she 
left the dishes and got out some kind of velvet 
stuff and made a banner. She cut eight stars 
out of white cardboard, — the six-pointed kind, 



of the Sunday-school 73 

'cause she don't know how to make a five-pointed 
Stan I bet I could have showed her. 

She wrote a baby's name on each star and 
pinned the stars round on the banner. Then she 
pasted some gilt letters along on top of the ban- 
ner, so that they spelled CRADLE ROLL, fixed 
a loop at each top corner, and when they began 
the meeting that night she had it all tacked up on 
the wall. 

The president saw it right off, and when they 
had sung a while he read off the babies' names 
and says: 

"No one can tell what God may do through 
some of these that this day are enrolled as part 
of this Sunday-school. He may have another 
D. L. Moody or a Frances E. Willard, whom he 
is just beginning to prepare in this way." 

Then he prayed for the Cradle Roll babies and 
their fathers and mothers, and told the Lord he 
hoped the Sunday-school would never forget to 
love and look after these little lambs. I was sit- 
ting right next to one baby's mother, and when 
he prayed for her baby she had her handker- 
chief up to her eyes, just like she was crying. 
I bet she liked it, though. 



74 Boy's-Eye Views 

Well, the next Sunday they asked the girls' 
class to be the mother of the Cradle Roll. So 
they hustled out, and every few Sundays they 
get hold of a new baby's name and bring it in. 
Whenever they hear of a new baby what isn't a 
Baptist nor a Presbyterian nor anything but just 
a M. E. or a nothing-at-all, then they rush right 
over and get its name. They got one little feller 
when he was only one day old. 

Lots of times the Sunday when a new baby is 
enrolled the father and mother bring it to Sun- 
day-school so we can see our newest member. 
Then the superintendent has them bring it up in 
front and we all say: 

"Welcome precious baby 
To our Cradle roll. 
Here a place is waiting 
For each tiny soul. 

"On the earth our Saviour 
Little children blessed. 
In his arms he took them, 
Held them to his breast. 
"Still he calls them to him. 
No one is too small, 
For the tender Saviour 
Loves and wants us all." 



of the Sunday-school 75 

Then Brother Parker prays for the baby and 
its home. 

It seemed kind of queer when Mrs. Jim John- 
son brought their baby, 'cause, you know, Jim is 
a saloon-keeper. 'Course she had to come alone, 
'cause he wouldn't come with her. A woman has 
to go alone lots of times if she marries that kind 
of a feller. 

But she came, and Brother Parker prayed for 
the whole family. We didn't think it would do 
much good to pray for Jim, but it did. You see, 
the little baby died after a while, and Jim, he 
just cried like he was a baby himself. He locked 
up his saloon, put crape on the door, and sent 
for Brother Parker. 

They had the funeral in the church. The 
girls what had got the baby to join all sat on 
the front seat and cried and cried. The school 
sent lots of flowers, and there was the Cradle 
Roll hanging on the wall, with a white rosebud 
pinned to the card that had Baby Johnson's name 
on it. 

Brother Parker talked about the little rosebud 
that had been transplanted from the thorny hill- 
side of this life to God's sunny garden above, and 



73 Boy's-Eye Views 

how we must all trust in Jesus, so as to meet her 
there. 

Well, sir, that night Jim Johnson was con- 
verted. Brother Parker says so, and he was 
down there when it happened. Jim never did 
open his saloon again. The fellers said he 
hauled all his booze down to the creek one night 
and poured it in. Anyhow, he joined the church 
and went to work for the butcher, and his wife 
comes to Sunday-school regular now. 

You know when a baby joins the Cradle Roll 
the school gives them a certificate to show that 
they belong. Well, sir, I heard Brother Parker 
tell mother that Mrs. Johnson has got that cer- 
tificate all framed and hung under the baby's 
picture on the parlor wall. I guess she is glad 
our Sunday-school had a Cradle Roll. 

Of course there's lots more about our Cradle 
Roll, and I'll tell you some more about it next 
time. 



CHAPTER XVI 

MORE CRADLE ROLL 

When I quit writing last time I hadn't told 
near all there is to tell about our Cradle Roll. 
So I planned to tell some more this time. But I 
didn't suppose I'd have another kind of a Cradle 
Roll to tell about, too. 

You see it was this way : Uncle Jim, — the one 
that my little brother is named for, — got awful 
sick about a month ago, and mother had to go 
over to Mustang to take care of him, because 
he lives all alone. Father said he was going 
along to do the chores, so they had to take us 
kids. 

We was over there two weeks and I learned 
lots of things. On Sunday father and I and 
little Jim went to the Congregational Sunday- 
school. They haven't got any of that kind in 
our town, but it was an all-right school, only the 
class that I went in had a regular old dry stick for 
a teacher. Some day I'll tell you about him and 
the circus* he had with the kids. 

77 



78 Boy's-Eye Views 

Now I only want to tell you about their Cradle 
Roll. It was a dandy. What do you suppose it was 
was made of? A window curtain. Only the 
roller was fastened down below somehow, and a 
string run up over a hook or something, so that 
they unrolled it up and rolled it up down. 

The names was all printed on it in those big 
letters like Mr. Jenkins makes pasteboard signs 
and prices with down to his grocery, and you 
could read them clear down the aisle. The boys' 
names was all in one row and the girls' in an- 
other, and I heard them talking that the girls of 
the school must try to find some more girl babies, 
because the boys' side was the fullest. 

Then there was things pasted on right by some 
of the names — pictures, they were. Some was a 
train of cars cut out of the back of a magazine. 
Some was gilt stars, and there was two names 
that had an angel cut out of the quarterly and 
pasted after them. 

I asked father what they was for, and he said 
he didn't know, but he would ask the super- 
intendent. When the superintendent came along 
and shook hands father asked him, and he said 
the trains was for babies that had moved away, 



of the Sunday-school 79 

and they still kept their names, and marked them 
that way. He said the stars meant that those 
babies had grown up and been promoted into the 
Beginners' Class, and the angels were by the 
names of two little babies that had gone to 
heaven, "where their angels do always behold the 
face of my Father which is in heaven/' Father 
said he would see if we couldn't put Baby John- 
son's name back on our Cradle Roll and mark it 
with an angel, and I say so too. 

There's one thing about Cradle Rolls; you've 
got to look after the babies. You can't just let 
them go. Over to Whacker Johnson's school, 
if they've got any Cradle Roll I bet the babies 
don't know they're on it. Having a whole class 
to look after our Cradle Roll keeps things lively. 
The girls are always going to see their babies, as 
they call them, and begging the mothers if they 
can't take them out in their buggies. 

When any baby gets big enough to go to Sun- 
day-school the girls are always ready to go around 
and get him and take care of him if his mother 
can't come too. And the mothers are more 
willing to let them come, because you see the 
baby has belonged to the school for a long time, 



80 



Boy's-Eye Views 



and has lots of friends there. He isn't just join- 
ing for the first time, but is being promoted from 
one grade to the next. The Cradle Roll is just 
the first grade. 




** The girls are airways going to see the babies,^* 
Then the girls keep track of the birthdays, and 
whenever a baby's birthday comes around they 
send him a birthday card, or a flower, or some- 



of the Sunday-school 81 

thing. One year they wrote birthday notes on 
little doll writing paper, in doll envelopes, and 
they addressed them to the babies and mailed 
them in the post-office. Of course, they put 
*'care of" and the father's name on the outside. 
They sent one of them to my little brother Jim. 
That was just before he started into the little 
red-chair class. Mother just cried when it came 
in the mail, and she's got it yet, put away up- 
stairs in a box in the top drawer of the bureau, 
along with a little pair of his worn-out shoes and 
a little baby gold ring that somebody gave him 
once. 

We've got a birthday box at our school, too. 
Of course it's for big folks as well as for kids, 
but when a Cradle Roller has had a birthday they 
have its father and mother bring it the next Sun- 
day, with as many pennies in its little fist as it 
is years old, and they take him up in front and 
have him drop them in the bank. Then, while 
they sitand there, we all say : 

" Many happy returns of the day of thy birth, 
May sunshine and gladness be given, 
And may the dear Saviour prepare thee on earth 
For a beautiful birthday in heaven." 



32 Boy's-Eye Views 

We've said that for some babies whose folks 
never come to church any other time. 

Then there was the baby social that they had 
once. The girls took care of all the babies in 
one room while the mothers visited together in 
the other room, only they would keep jumping 
up, first one and then another, to run and peek 
in the door to see if their babies was all right. 

The girls had fixed up some cradles for the 
sleepy babies, and some big red worsted balls 
and cloth dolls for the wide-awake babies. While 
the mothers ate their ice-cream the babies had 
animal crackers and milk, and they all said they 
had the loveliest time, — that is, the mothers did, — 
and I guess the babies did too. Now every one 
of those babies but three is in our Beginners* 
Class, and those three moved away. I tell you, 
a baby roll pays. 



CHAPTER XVII 




BOUT a month ago they had a 
house visitation canvass in 
our town. The churches all 
clubbed together and the peo- 
ple divided off in pairs, folks 
from different churches going together. 

They went to every house in town, and asked 
them who lived there, where they went to church 
and Sunday-school, or what one they would go 
to if they should start. Those that didn't go 
anywhere they tried to get to promise to start, 
and if they said they couldn't, then they talked 
Home Department to them. 

I didn't think it would do much good, and 
Brother Parker didn't either. He said he knew 
everybody in town, and that he had got every- 

83 



84 Boy's-Eye Views 

body to come that would come. But when those 
papers that they made out came back and the 
preachers and superintendents met to look them 
over together, Brother Parker said he was sur- 
prised. He said there was M. E. folks on that 
list that had never let on to him that they was 
M. E.'s, and he was going to see after them. 

There was twenty-six that promised to start 
to our school and ten promised to join our Home 
Department. There was more still for the other 
churches. The Presbyterians had forty prom- 
ise to join the school, and the Baptists, what 
haven't had any Home Department, had thirty- 
seven promise to join one if they would start it. 

You just ought to see the way our Sunday- 
school is going after those thirty-six that prom- 
ised to come. You see, some of them forget it 
and we have to help them keep their promise. 
First they appointed a welcoming committee to 
be at the door and make the new ones welcome. 
They didn't have this committee the first Sun- 
day after the house visitation; didn't believe 
any new ones would come, I guess. But they 
did come. Two little Davis girls came from 
over east of the track. Brother Parker was 



of the Sunday-school 85 

busy up in front when they came in and no 
bcdy paid any attention to them. They stood 
round a while and then went home. They told 
their folks that the women what had invited 
them and said people would be glad to see them 
didn't mean a word of it. Now they say they 
won't try it again. I tell you, you've got to show 
folks that you're glad to see them if you want 
them to come again. 

There can't anybody come into our Sunday- 
school now without getting spoken to, ^cause 
there's the welcoming committee just inside the 
door. 

Then we've got another one called a hunting- 
up committee. It is to hunt up the ones that 
forget to come. The welcoming committee 
keeps track for them of who comes and who 
doesn't. Then the next week the hunting-up 
committee goes to see what was the matter, and 
they keep on going till they get them, just like 
that life insurance man did to my father. One 
place where they thought the people stayed away 
'cause they didn't want to come, they found the 
father and mother both sick in bed and the kids 
never had a thing to eat. 



86 Boy's-Eye Views 

And there's lots of other things that they're 
doing these days. Of course Brother Parker is 
hustHng round all the time, but he makes the 
others work, too. 

There's the Ladies' Aid. My father says some 
aid societies ought to be called hindrance soci- 
eties, for they do more harm than good. They're 
all the time begging money like the church was 
a pauper and couldn't pay its own bills, or else 
they're running competition to the restaurant 
with a supper or to the dry goods store with a 
bazaar, and teaching people that they can't afford 
to give to the Lord unless ihey get their money's 
worth right back in candy or fancy work. He 
says it makes ''loaves-and-fishes" Christians and 
that kind will never spread foreign missions 
much. 

Then he says the women work so hard getting 
up Fourth of July dinners and election suppers 
that they don't have any strength left for the 
real work of the church, like calling on the 
sick, going to prayer-meeting, and teaching in 
Sunday-school. But our Ladies' Aid isn't like 
that. They meet every Friday afternoon at the 
church. Brother Parker meets with them and 



of the Sunday-school 87 

gives each two of them a slip of paper with two 
or three names of families that they are to call 
on and invite to our church. They pray a while 
that God will bless them and their calls that 
day, and then they all go out and make the 
calls. The next week they tell about their last 
calls and then take new slips and go to see other 
families. Since they started doing that way 
our church won't hardly hold the people that 
come, and Brother Parker says the collections 
never was so big before. Isn't that a real aid 
society ? 

We have gained twenty new ones in our Sun- 
day-school since the house visitation and Mrs. 
Smith has got the ten that promised to join 
the Home Department. Everything is just going 
on fine. 

It isn't just our church either. They're all 
on the boom since the house visitation. Of 
course they're each working for the folks what 
naturally belong to them, but they never would 
have known about all that did belong to them 
if they hadn't all joined together in that house 
visitation. 

Once a month the teachers and officers from 



83 Boy's-Eye Views 

all the Sunday-schools meet on Sunday after- 
noon to talk about their work and ask each 
other how they are getting along. They have 
Cradle Roll reports, talks about old church let- 
ters, about how many new scholars they have 
got since last time, and about Home Depart- 
ments. When the Baptists heard the other folks 
telling how much good the Home Department 
was, they finally started it, and now theyVe got 
a fine one. 

That's the way every church is helping every 
other church now in our town, and old man Rose 
says if the churches are going to quit fighting 
each other and love each other instead, he's go- 
ing to start going to church for maybe there is 
something in it after all. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SINGING 

We've got a new superintendent at last. I 
don't guess w'e ever would have if the oLl 
superintendent hadn't died. Of course we was 
all sorry to have him die, and they gave a 
mighty big funeral, and said as how the church 
would miss him, but I think it's going to be a 
great thing for the school. 

As soon as our class heard that the old su- 
perintendent was dead we began talking about 
our man for the new superintendent. Every- 
body we talked to said, ''Why, that's so, we 
hadn't thought of him." So last month he was 
elected. My, but we was glad. 

His name is Mr. Holcomb, and he runs the 
lumber yard. He isn't much for looks, but I 
tell you he's sharp. You can't fool him, and 
he is for every good thing that comes along. 
Maybe we can even have a blackboard now. 

He's been superintendent four Sundays and 
the first thing he did was to wake up the music. 

89 



90 Boy's-Eye Views 

It needed it, all right. I just can't tell you how 
bad our singing was. It was just dry. 

The old superintendent always picked out the 
pieces and it seemed like he tried to get the 
slowest, pokiest, draggiest pieces in the whole 
book. I just believe a fast piece would have 
seemed wicked to him. Then there never was 
any leader for it. Everybody just did as he 
pleased. Some sang loud, some sang soft, some 
sang slow and the rest sang slower, and a whole 
lot of us never tried to sing at all. What was 
the use? 

Then he most always picked out the same 
pieces every Sunday. You give me three guesses 
any Sunday morning and I could have told you 
what he would have given out first. 

The first thing Mr. Holcomb did was to ap- 
point a leader and tell him to wake us all up, 
and when the leader can't make us sing lively 
enough Mr. Holcomb pitches in and helps stir 
things. 

The leader stands up in front and leads off. 
Sometimes he sings loud. Sometimes he just 
stands and listens and smiles. Sometimes he 
beats time or slaps his book or stamps his foot 



of the Sunday-school 91 

and just scowls like everything. That's when 
we sing too slow or don't keep together. 

I tell you things have to move some now. 
Mr. Holcomb says when we praise the Lord we 
ought to do it as if we was just running over 
with joy, like you feel when the band plays "Red, 
White and Blue." That's my kind, singing that 
makes you feel like marching and doing some- 
thing hard. 

Then they began giving out new pieces that 
none of us knowed. We couldn't sing them, and 
I for one didn't try. But that week they had all 
the girls between nine and fourteen years meet 
and practise the new pieces, and the next Sun- 
day there the girls was, all stuck up in the cor- 
ner for a choir. The Junior Choir they call 
them, and when we tackled a new piece that 
day it sounded just like an old one, only not all 
worn out. 

The leader makes you sing, too. You can't 
get out of it. He has the choir sing alone some- 
times till everybody just can't hardly wait to 
join in. Then maybe he will have the Bible 
class sing a verse, then the young ladies' class, 
and so on. The first time he called on our class 



92 Boy's-Eye Views 

only one feller tried it, and he just gave a squawk 
like a sick chicken and then sat down quick. I 
ain't going to tell you who that feller was, but 
my, how they did laugh. We can sing them all 
right now, though. 

Then he makes us think what we are sing- 
ing about. He says youVe got to sing one song 
one way and another song another way, accord- 
ing to the words. A marching song he has us 
sing all standing up and holding our heads up 
high. But for a prayer song we all sit still and 
bow our heads and sing soft. Sometimes he 
says, "We're going to sing this prayer song into 
the ear of Jesus.'* I tell you it gets mighty still 
then, just before we begin to sing. 

We don't sing all new songs either. Mr. Hol- 
comb says most folks are just fairly married to 
a hymn-book these days, and that we want to 
break loose and have some songs that we know 
and can sing anywhere. He started in to teach 
us "Blessed Assurance,'* and it didn't take but 
two Sundays till we could sing it clear through 
with all the books shut. Now we are learning 
"Joy to the World," and we pretty near know 
that already from last Christmas. 



of the Sunday-school 93 

I like to sing without the book. It seems 
natural and free like. Mr. Holcomb says you 
never know when you may want to sing. He 
says when our old superintendent was dying he 
asked them to sing something, and not one of 
them could think of a single thing without the 
books and they was all locked up in the church. 
Finally the old man himself started up *'There 
is a Fountain filled with blood/' and sang it all 
through alone, 'cause the rest of them was cry- 
ing so they couldn't join in. Mr. Holcomb says 
he is going to see that none of us ever get caught 
like that. 

We certainly have good singing these days and 
it makes Sunday-school interesting, I tell you* 
Best of all, Mr. Holcomb says if some of us 
boys will learn to play instruments we will have 
a Sunday-school orchestra. Wouldn't that be 
great ? 



CHAPTER XIX 

TEACHERS'-MEETING 

When I was a kid mother used to take me with 
her to teachers'-meeting sometimes, when there 
was any, 'cause father couldn't leave the store. 
That teachers'-meeting was tough. It was tough 
on a feller to sit there all the time with noth- 
ing much going on. And it was tough in an- 
other way, 'cause they couldn't kill it. But 
they couldn't keep it alive much of the time 
either. It had more lives than a black cat and 
more deaths than the feller in the show that 
gets shot every night. I was always glad when 
it was dead, 'cause then I didn't have to go. 

There was only a few that tried to keep it 
up. The rest of them said they was so busy 
and there was so many other things going on, 
and they lived so far from the church, and they 
was so tired when night came, and they couldn't 
get off from the store, and a lot of other reasons, 
that they just couldn't come. But I noticed 
that when there was a band concert Saturday 

94: 



of the Sunday-school 95 

night the women was about all on hand visit- 
ing all over the park, and when there was a 
baseball game the men got off from the store, all 
right. I believe they were all just like me, they 
didn't want to go to teachers'-meeting 'cause it 
was so dry. 

They tried all sorts of schemes to get the 
people to come. They mixed the prayer-meet- 
ing and the teachers'-meeting together a while. 
That seemed like it would work all right, but 
by and by it was as bad as ever. Then they 
had the prayer-meeting first and the teachers'- 
meeting right afterward. That was a little bet- 
ter but lots of the teachers didn't come even 
then. 

Next they had teachers'-meeting only once 
a month. They didn't try to study the lessons 
much, but they talked about how to make the 
Sunday-school better and all that. It might have 
worked all right only it was so long between 
meetings that even the preacher would forget 
when it came round and lots of times didn't 
give it out in the pulpit and so nobody would 
come. That was before Brother Parker came 
here. 



96 Boy's-Eye Views 

When Brother Parker first came he didn't say 
anything about teachers'-meeting for a while. 
But one Sunday morning he gave out that on 
Tuesday night there would be a reception to 
all the teachers and officers of the Sunday-school. 
He said that no set of workers did more for 
the success of the church than the officers and 
teachers in the Sunday-school, and that the 
church ought to do them honor. He said the 
church officers would be there to receive them 
and for every teacher to be sure to come. 

Of course mother went and father even got 
off from the store and went too. You just 
know I was there, 'cause I wanted to see what 
it was going to be like. I guess all the teach- 
ers felt about the same way for there was only 
one absent and she was sick. 

They had the best time that night, not a bit 
like the old dry teachers'-meetings they used to 
have; but it was some like a teachers'-meeting, 
too. 

After the teachers had all come in and shaken 
hands with Brother Parker and Mrs. Parker 
and the stewards of the church, and the Mrs. 
Stewards, and all the rest of the committee by 



of the Sunday-school 



97 



the door, and all walked around and shook hands 
with each other, and began to look like a party, 
Brother Parker got up and told them to take 
seats for a program. And I tell you it was a 
good one. 

One of the stewards read a paper about the 
beginning of the Sunday-school, all about that 




^All ivalked around and shook hands 
twith each other.^^ 

feller that started the first one, and how the 
people called him Bobby Wild-goose. Then 
father was on to tell what a hard time they had 
starting our school when Oklahoma first opened. 
He. used to live here then, before he got mar- 



98 Boy's-Eye Views 

ried and moved to Texas. He told how they 
met under a tree the first Sunday, and then in 
a tent and then the blacksmith shop right across 
from where the church is now. 

The superintendent (that was before the old 
one died, you know), he told about three of 
the boys that used to belong to this school and 
now one of them is superintendent of a Sun- 
day-school down by the Big Pasture, one of 
them is taking the Conference Course to be a 
minister like Brother Parker, and what do you 
think? The other one is a really-truly mission- 
ary in India. The superintendent showed us his 
picture and read us a letter from him. 

Brother Parker asked if we couldn't have 
that picture to frame and hang in the church. 
The superintendent said he hated to give it up, 
but he would, for maybe it would make some 
other boy in that school want to be a mission- 
ary. 

Then Brother Parker gave what he called 
snap shots at the next Sunday's lesson. It was 
fine. Why he made it as interesting as if it 
was a real story instead of just a lesson. Finally 
they all stood up and sang ''Blest be the Tie 



of the Sunday-school 99 

that Binds/' and then Brother Parker said that 
every Tuesday night they would have just such 
a meeting of all teachers and officers of the Sun- 
day-school and church at the parsonage, and he 
wanted every one to know that they will have 
a good time if they come and be missed if they 
stay away. Then he prayed for them all and 
we came home. 

He gave it out again Sunday in Sunday-school 
and church, and I was thinking about it all Tues- 
day afternoon wondering if it would be as good 
as the first one, and hoping that if it was, it 
wouldn't die like the old kind did. And, sir, 
it never has died yet. Every week we seem to 
have a better time than before and the teachers 
come as regular as they do to Sunday-school. 
I guess the trouble before was that they didn't 
want to come; didn't like it. 

I can't tell you all they do have in that teach- 
ers'-meeting because they have something dif- 
ferent all the time. I don't see how Brother 
Parker thinks of all the things that they have. 
I guess he must study on it as hard as he does 
on his sermons. It isn't like a meeting, either, 
but more Hke a sociable. They all shake hands 



100 Boy's-Eye Views 

around and talk when they first come in and 
tell how glad they are to see each other, like as 
if they hadn't met for a year. 

Then Brother Parker has them all pull their 
chairs up together in a circle where they can all 
see and hear each other. They generally have 
something read first, either an essay by some- 
body or a chapter out of some book on Sunday- 
school teaching, and some of those books are 
right interesting. Then they talk about how to 
make our Sunday-school better. It isn't a bit 
like a meeting for they all talk as if they like 
to. It's more like us fellers when we go fishing 
all day, and 'long after dinner we set our poles 
in the bank and just lie round under a tree and 
say what we think. 

After they have talked a while then they take 
their Bibles and Brother Parker gives them some 
more snap shots at the next lesson. He doesn't 
regularly teach it, verse by verse. He just picks 
out the interesting spots and makes you see 
things that you never knew was in the Bible, 
real things about real heroes what did things. 
I tell you it's great. He asks the teachers lots 
of queer questions and makes them think. You 



of the Sunday-school 101 

see they have to study before they come, and 
he studies it a heap, too. 

Then he shows them how to teach. When I 
first came to this school our teacher wasn't much 
good. She meant all right but it was always 
the same old thing, just reading the questions 
out of the quarterly. You remember how I told 
about all the things she does now? Well, she 
learned them all in that teachers'-meeting. And 
so do the other teachers. About every good 
thing in our school was hatched up in the teach- 
ers'-meeting. 

What do you suppose they do after Brother 
Parker has finished the snap shots? They all 
kneel down and pray right round the circle. 
Some of them can't pray very long prayers but 
they all say something. Sometimes they sing 
something while they all kneel there, like "Where 
he leads me I will follow," and one night after 
they had all said good by and gone on down 
the street, lots of them were humming soft- 
like, "I'll go where you want me to go, dear 
Lord." 

There isn't any trouble with our teachers'- 
meeting any more, because they all like to come. 



102 Boy's-Eye Views 

You see it is interesting and makes them feel 
good. I don't believe that kind of a teachers'- 
meeting could die. 



CHAPTER XX 

DECISION DAY 

Do you know what a decision day is? I 
didn't know there was such a thing till lately, 
but I do now, all right, and I don't believe I'll 
ever forget it if I live to be as old as Methuselah. 
It's a good thing, all right, if it does make you 
feel kind of measly while you're going through 
it. We had one last month and it was the best 
thing our school ever did. 

They got it started in teachers'-meeting one 
night, talking about how there was lots of boys 
and girls in the Sunday-school what wasn't real 
Christians. They didn't mean that we don't be- 
lieve the Bible. 'Course we know that's all true. 
But they seemed to think it took something more 
than that. 

Brother Parker asked each teacher to bring 
his class-book to teachers'-meeting the next week 
and be ready to tell which names was Christians 
and which wasn't. Then they got down and 

103 



104 Boy's-Eye Views 

prayed all round, and they mostly prayed mighty 
plain about us fellers what hadn't made any 
start yet. They seemed to think it was mighty 
dangerous to put it off. 

I kind of forgot about it that week till mother 
went to get her class-book to take to teachers'- 
meeting. Then I didn't know what to do. I 
wanted to be there so as to know what they did, 
but I didn't want to hear my teacher read my 
name out. So finally I hid out. When mother 
got home that night it was 'way late and her 
eyes was red like she had been to a funeral. 
I guess 'twas about me. 

I didn't go to any more teachers^-meetings 
for a while, but they kept them right up and 
finally one week they had one every night, and 
I guess they must have talked about what to do. 
I know things began to happen all at once. 

Friday afternoon right after school father 
took me fishing and we stayed till dark. 'Long 
about sundown, when we was sitting alongside 
of each other on the bank and it was all still, 
what do you think he said? He says: "My 
boy, I wish you were an active Christian.'* I 
never said nothing; couldn't for a lump in my 



of the Sunday-school 105 

throat. And I guess he had a lump, too, be- 
cause he never said nothing more. Pretty soon 
we wound up our Hnes and started home, and he 
put his arm through mine Hke men do and we 
walked clear home that way and never said a 
word. But I know what he was thinking about. 

Saturday noon I got a letter from my teacher, 
like as if it was my birthday. I tell you she can 
sure write a fine letter, I read mine three times 
out in the barn, and I've got it yet. She said 
about the same thing father did, only more of 
it. 

That night when mother got home from 
teachers'-meeting and I was in bed, she came in 
to see if I was covered up. She tucked me in 
and patted me a little like she used to when I 
was a little kid, and then she sat on the edge of 
the bed and told me about when I was born, 
how she and father gave me to God, and how 
they used to pray together over my little bed, 
and how they had always prayed that I might 
become a real earnest Christian while I was 
young. She told me the next day was to be De- 
cision Day in the Sunday-school and we was all 
going to have a chance to make a start, and she 



106 Boy's-Eye Views 

was so anxious for me to do it. Then she kissed 
me and kneeled down and prayed for me. I just 
had to cover up my head, but I was awful glad 
she did it. 

The next morning Sunday-school wasn't like 
it had ever been before. Everybody seemed to 
be expecting something. They opened with 
''Stand up, stand up for Jesus," and just before 
the lesson they sang, *''Just as I am, without one 
plea." And they had lots of short prayers from 
the teachers and they was all about the same 
thing. You know what that was. 

Our teacher almost forgot the lesson about 
the children of Israel being slaves in Egypt, and 
spent most all the time telling us how awful it 
was to be a slave to sin and how Jesus was the 
only one that could lead us out. She told us 
how she had been praying ever since she took 
the class that every one of her boys might be 
converted, and that Jesus wanted it lots worse 
than she did. 

Then she says, "Some of you boys have al- 
ready chosen Christ as your Saviour. Won't 
you tell us when and how you did it?" She wait- 
ed a little bit and looked at Bert Thomas. 



of the Sunday-school 107 

Finally he told how he came to start, and it 
didn't seem so hard. Then Fred Keller, he told 
about it too, and how he prays every morning, 
and how Jesus seems to help him. I bet teacher 
told them fellers beforehand to be ready. But it 
was all right. They are a heap better than I am. 

Then our teacher says, ''Boys, Brother Parker 
is going to give the rest of you a chance this 
morning to make the same start that Bert and 
Fred have made, and accept the same Saviour. 
But we don't need to wait. Let's decide it 
right here in the class, and then when Brother 
Parker gives the call it will be easy, for it will 
be all settled. Won't you do it?" 

I guess she saw we looked almost ready, for 
she says, "Let's all bow our heads and close our 
eyes and make our decision for God's eyes 
alone." Then she says, "All of you who do this 
day confess that you have sinned against God, 
that you are truly sorry for your sins, and who 
do put your trust in Jesus Christ and accept him 
as your Saviour and your King, hold up your 
hands." We all held our eyes shut, but I heard 
the feller next to me move like he was putting 
his up, and I did, too. Then we all opened our 



108 Boy's-Eye Views 

eyes, and every feller had his hand up, even Bull- 
dog Jones, and teacher was just crying 'cause 
she was so glad, you know, and we was all glad, 
too. Just then the bell rang, and we came to 
order. 

Instead of reports and things that day. Brother 
Parker got up and made a talk, and while he 
talked he was putting this on our new blackboard : 



Joseph 


Moses 


Jesus 


Saved 


Saved 


Saves 


His Family 


His Nation 


His People 


From 


From 


From 


Starvation 


Slavery 


Sin 



After he had talked about it a little bit 
he had us all say together, ''Thou shalt call 
his name Jesus: for he shall save his people 
from their sins." "Now," he says, "who are his 
people?'' and father hollered right out, "Who- 
soever will, bless God." "Yes," says Brother 
Parker, "as many as received him, to them gave 



of the Sunday-school 109 

he power to become the sons of God." How 
many of you young people will receive Jesus as 
your Saviour to-day? Come and give me your 
hand/' 

Then he began to sing again, soft-like, "Just 
as I am, I come, I come." I was so happy I 
just couldn't wait, so I went right up, and when 
I got there all the rest of our class was there 
too, and lots from the other classes. We all 
kneeled down, while Brother Parker prayed for 
us, and then he told us all to come to a special 
meeting at three o'clock. 

That afternoon we was all there, and he never 
let us go till he had talked with every one of us, 
and we had each said we believed Jesus was our 
Saviour, and that we would stick to him. Then 
he prayed that God would help us to be faithful, 
and let us go. You see, he don't believe in doing 
anything half-way. Brother Parker don't. 

I can't stop to tell you about the meetings 
Brother Parker has with us every Friday after- 
noon after school. He tells us what it means to 
be a Christian, about joining the church, what 
our church believes, and why, and all about it. 
He has us pray, too, out loud. Then we all plan 



110 



Boy's-Eye Views 



to get more boys and girls into our Sunday- 
school and get them converted. 

I tell you, I am glad we had decision day in 
our school. I meant what I did that day, and 
I am going to stick to it. Won't you do it, too? 



Good-by, 



Pucker. 




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